This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art, which may be related to various aspects of the present invention that are described or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Computer systems are used in nearly every business, home and school to increase productivity, enhance education, provide entertainment, and to facilitate communication, among other things. With the wide variety of uses, it is not surprising that a wide variety of computer hardware and software is available to customize computers according to the desires and needs of those using the computers. One hardware device, in particular, that allows for the customization of a computer system is an input/output (I/O) card and computer systems may be configured to receive one or more I/O cards. The I/O cards may be configured to operate as network interface cards, storage controller cards, or a graphics cards, for example.
A host interface allows an I/O card to communicate with a computer. In recent years, the peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) interface has become the de facto standard host interface for I/O cards. PCIe is a point-to-point protocol, as opposed to a bus protocol, meaning each I/O card has a dedicated communication path with the host chipset. When a computer's system board is designed, the host interface from the system board's chipset are permanently allocated to all the I/O card slots within that system. The permanent allocation of the host interface may limit the use of the chipset's bandwidth when an I/O card not specifically designed for the system is placed in a slot. In order for the I/O card slots to be more versatile, i.e., to support a myriad of I/O cards, the I/O card slots need to be as high bandwidth as possible. Conventionally, in order to make a particular I/O card compatible with a particular system, pin groups are added to the I/O card.